New Restaurant Mercado Cantina Offers Modern Mexican In Glenview

GLENVIEW, IL — A new Glenview restaurant promising a modern and progressive approach to traditional regional Mexican cuisine opened last month. Mercado Cocina is currently open for dinner across from the North Glenview train station and will begin offering lunch and drinks next week.

Mercado's "market-to-table" concept is intended to evoke a stroll through Mexico's bustling food markets and feature the fresh ingredients one would find there, according to the owners of the independently owned restaurant.

The team behind the new restaurant said it will offer an entire menu made from scratch, including seasonal moles, guacamoles and salsas, tortillas handmade to order and freshly pressed juice for its drinks.

Executive Chef Yanitzin "Yanni" Sanchez grew up in the Mexican city of Toluca and graduated from the Culinary Institute of Mexico in Puebla. Her travels took her around Mexico and through Europe, and she finished her culinary training at the École de Paris Patisserie Boulangere, according to the restaurant. In 2007, Sanchez moved to Chicago and became a sous chef at the Art Institute of Chicago before opening her first restaurant two years later — Sabor Saveur, which closed in Wicker Park in 2012. She then became a chef consultant specializing in Nouveau Mexican cuisine, developing the concept for Cine, which closed last year in Hinsdale, as well as other clients.

Sanchez said Mercado's menu aimed to expose North Shore diners to a wider range of Mexican food.

“To be sure, I will present items that are familiar to American guests, such as our approach to steak tacos or a generous portion of guacamole,” Sanchez said, announcing her new restaurant's opening. “But I also want to expose flavors that people may not be familiar with. Most guests don’t know that there are more than 26 different versions of molé. When was the last time someone had a flauta wrapped in lettuce, as if it were a lettuce wrap?"

"Mercado will attempt to push boundaries with what people have come to know from Mexican dining," she said. "Ultimately, we will be successful by listening to our guests and determining just how far we can go. We’re eager to learn.”

In addition to the choice of seven types of tacos, the menu at opening included familiar items like a steak burrito and carne asada, as well as crispy duck buenolos with oaxacan mole and figs, smoked octopus and esquites, roasted corn with a paresan creme gratin. Its house specialties include a Lamb barbacoa wrapped in banana leaf and a grilled chicken with mole and chile-infused apple.

Sanchez was most recently a corporate chef in Philadelphia, she told the Chicago Tribune, before returning to the Chicago area to create a new menu for the 75-seat Glenview restaurant.

Her partner in the project, owner and operator Richard Vallejo, is aiming to turn Mercado Cocina into one of the top dining destinations on the North Shore by bringing the "progressive edge" of the Chicago food scene to the suburbs.

The Evanston resident was previously general manager of Bar Takito and Takito Kitchen in Chicago's West Town neighborhood, where he worked with Sanchez and Mercado's operations manager Steven White.

Vallejo has also been an operating partner at Minx Restaurant and Lounge and Swirl Wine Bar in River North. He is the founder of a restaurant management company and has consulted for restaurants and other establishments around the city.

Mercado Cocina is currently open for dinner and weekend brunch. Starting May 16, it will begin offering a counter service lunch menu from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Its bar will be open daily from 3 p.m. to close.